017_computer_security_and_ethics.txt

---COMPUTER SECURITY AND ETHICS---

The Moral Importance of Computer Security--
The condition resulting from these efforts is also called computer security. The aim of computer security professionals is to attain protection 
of valuable information and system resources. A distinction can be made between the security of system resources and the security of information or data. 
The first may be called system security, and the second information security or data security.

--How does computer security pose ethical issues?--
ethics is mostly concerned with rights, harms and interests.
A first and perhaps most obvious harm that can occur from breaches of computer security is economic harm. Breaches of information security may 
come at an even higher economic cost. Valuable data may be lost or corrupted that is worth much more than the hardware on which it is stored, and this 
may cause severe economic losses.

Breaches of computer security may even cause grave harms like injury and death. This may occur in so-called safety-critical systems, which are computer 
systems with a component or real-time control that can have a direct life-threatening impact. 

These may include systems that are used for design, monitoring, diagnosis or decision-making, for instance systems used for bridge design or 
medical diagnosis.

Second, compromises of confidentiality may violate privacy rights. This occurs when information that is accessed includes information about 
persons that is considered to be private.

--Computer Security and National Security--
Developments in computer security have been greatly influenced by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and their aftermath. 
In response to these attacks, national security has become a major policy concern of Western nations. National security is the maintenance of the 
integrity and survival of the nation-state and its institutions by taking measures to defend it from threats, particularly threats from the outside. 
Many new laws, directives and programs protective of national security have come into place in Western nations after 9/11, including the creation in the 
U.S. of an entire Department of Homeland Security. 

Government computers, but also other public and private infrastructure, including the Internet and telephone network, have been subjected to stepped-up 
security measures. Secondly, governments have attempted to gain more control over public and private information infrastructures. 

cybersecurity, involves the protection of information infrastructure against threats to national interests. Such threats have come to be defined 
more broadly than terrorism, and have nowadays come to include all kinds of threats to public order, including internet crime, online child pornography, 
computer viruses, and racist and hate-inducing websites. At the heart of cybersecurity, however, are concerns for national security, and especially 
the state’s vulnerability to terrorist attacks.